On my trip back to Vancouver from Nanaimo the captain kindly allowed be to fly with him in the cockpit. How often do you get to say “I’m flying shotgun”? I got to chat with the captain during the flight and got beautiful panoramic views of the Georgia Straight. Once Read more
Marcus lives in Vancouver and doesn’t drive, so I said: “Let’s go to every single station on the SkyTrain network.” He said: “This sounds like a bad idea…but ok.” We started off in high spirits off Broadway-City Hall station, then we were tired by the time we got to King Read more
I learned about Franz Boaz in my linguistic anthropology class and thought about his warnings on ethnocentrism when he researched linguistic anthropology in the US. I had many experiences of cross-cultural conflict in my lifetime having lived on three continents, yet I didn’t have a specific word to describe this Read more
In the past decade, Vancouver has been increasingly transit friendly with the mayor promoting cycling combined with public transportation as an environmentally friendly alternative to driving. The West Coast Express (WCE) is a commuter rail link serving eight stations between Waterfront in downtown Vancouver all the way to Mission City Read more
I don’t know about you, but every time I see a news story on some flood or hurricane in the eastern seaboard of the US, I’m frustrated by their inaction. Residents are aware of the risks of resettling in an area of high flood risk and hurricane zones but they Read more
While most of my fellow classmates went out to Victoria to do touristy things, I drove all the way out to Abbotsford to attend a reconciliation event between the Cree Nation and the church. Canada has a long history of mistreating indigenous people and it is still a contentious issue Read more
Legally known as the Musquem Indian Band, the Musqueam people are the indigenous people of Vancouver. They are located just south of the UBC campus and across the river from the Vancouver International Airport. Getting access to the cultural pavilion to learn more about their history proved to Read more
Part I: My Takeaways In the past four years, I’ve enrolled in four universities as a student on three continents and as far as group projects go there are at least four types of people present when a group is larger than five: Freerider: this goes without saying Leader: the Read more
In my book Another Place, there’s a chapter titled Typical People. In that chapter, I highlight how other typical foreign students in Berlin spend their time on drinking, expensive coffees, and dress in high-fashion just to impress their peers. I don’t call them my peers because that would imply that Read more
